[Live-devel] How to release frame; How to improve horrible video quality

[temp2010 at forren.org]

Please consider these two questions.  Thanks very much.

BACKGROUND:  I adapted testH264VideoStreamer.cpp and DeviceSouce.cpp/hpp so
that I could send a live video feed out over the network.  I currently test
using VLC.  I generate h.264 encoded frames using a Microsoft Media
Foundation (MF) back end to my existing MF streaming software.  There is a
call to env->taskScheduler().doEventLoop() in my
adapted testH264VideoStreamer.cpp, which is in a separate thread.  Thus, my
primary thread handles the MF streaming, and this secondary thread makes
sure doEventLoop() happens.

QUESTION ONE: My h.264 encoding repeatedly creates new [output] buffers
that I pass to the live555 side, using an adapted signalNewFrameData()
function that goes through the scheduler trigger event.  This is fine.  But
how can I figure out when the buffer is no longer in use?  I need to return
it to the pool, de-allocate it, or otherwise free it up.  Otherwise, I'll
leak memory usage indefinitely.

QUESTION TWO: Right now, the video I see using VLC is truly horrible.  I'm
no h.264 or mpeg-4 expert, but it appears as if half my detail frames are
missing.  It's like watching satellite TV during a rain storm.  This could
be related to the above, but I don't think so due to a prior single-thread
solution that looked the same but guaranteed appropriate buffer
allocation/de-allocation.  So why might my video look so bad, or how can I
go about figuring out why it's so?  Being sufficiently ignorant, I can only
guess at how you may answer to assist me.  One thing I guess about is a
method to trace the h.264 encoded output to see if it's all getting though,
I frames P frames we call frame for Ice cream, or whatever.

Thanks very much.
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